How Imavov Beat Adesanya (Patreon)

• If you’re new to LMA, start with our table of contents

Nassourdine Imavov knocked out Israel Adesanya in the second round. So what happened?

The key moment, in my opinion, happened before the final sequence. Adesanya was standing right foot forward, Imavov with his left, and Adesanya grabbed Imavov's lead hand with his own lead hand and pushed him back. From their positions, their lead hands are closest to each other, while the rest of their bodies, including their heads, are far away.

Moments later, Adesanya changed stances, and his right hand went from being in the lead to being in the rear. However, Adesanya still went to grab Imavov's lead hand with his right while throwing a jab, but this time they were much closer. This caused Adesanya to stretch forward. Positive habits from one position can become negative ones in another.

Imavov moved out of the way of the jab and adjusted to Adesanya's hand fighting by yanking down on Adesanya's outstretched lead hand. Both of Adesanya's hands were out of play, and he was too committed to pull away.

Superlek Kiatmoo9 did something similar to Jonathan Haggerty in their second fight, using Haggerty's hand fighting against him and catching him while he was leaning.

Adesanya got caught while out of position.

Something that puzzled me was, what was Adesanya looking at? Why aren't his eyes on that punch? He's looking at Imavov's head, not the punch. He was looking at the target he wanted to hit rather than looking for what was coming back. Only by looking at his gaze did I realize he was throwing a jab. Imavov threw a cross counter over the jab. Regardless of how good of a striker you are, the more you fight, the more things like this happen.

– Sam